At this very crisis the Ninth and Tenth Cavalry, or United States colored troops, were ordered forward to the rescue of their dismounted brothers, and so dismounted, they advanced up the hill-side, laughing and hurrahing with as much trained ease, and as cheerfully as if they had been upon their old parade grounds in the far West! Success against the enemy was now assured. Our brave, well-seasoned veterans from the West fired, advanced, lay down, chatted and laughed with their white brothers, as they lay upon the ground, partly hidden among the brushwood, tall grasses and bushes of the Cuban jungle; and thus the day there was saved, and the white men were saved by the Ninth and Tenth Cavalry, just in the self-same way as white and black had often saved one another during the Civil War in the sixties. The wire fences were cut, the trenches were cleared of their occupants, the hill-top was gained, the Spaniards were set upon the run down the hill, on the other side, and now our men could see their enemies, and have a straight shot at them as they ran down the open, in full retreat and rapid flight. Our own trained heroes followed fast after them, dropping on one knee every now and then, to get a steadier aim at the fleeing Spaniards and thus they fell at a rapid rate before our guns. While it is true that there was no desire among our own men to be vain of their achievements when they had thus timely assisted in saving and winning the field, still, the wild and hearty cheers that were there and then given to the black soldiers by their white comrades were very encouraging, indeed, to the hearts of the former. Many of the letters sent home and published in the papers were quite unstinted in their praise, and showed how the white men shouted their loudest huzzas to the colored men, swung their arms and caps in the air, and made other demonstrations of mutual good will and delight. Most of the Republican papers, and even some of the Democratic and others wrote editorials and other shorter and well-pointed paragraphs, too numerous for me either to mention or extract. With the exception of the soreheads and those whose stubborn natures love to hide all such promising things and keep them from public favor, there were none who failed to do us that justice to which we were entitled. As for the Twenty-fourth and Twenty-fifth Colored Infantry, they lent a hand in the different actions that were fought around Santiago, and are well spoken of by one and all whose duty, love or pleasure it was to record the details of the fighting that took place in the environments of Santiago de Cuba.